First off, best name ever! I played this with keyboard and still had loads of fun, I loved the use of audio in it, and the very frantic pace of the game too! Great fun, though it sure gets crazy!!!

Nice work, I like the ants stealing the food, other ants picked it up quickly though.

Nice game. I thought I could cheat by just picking up a plate and run away, but turns out that's not possible ^^

Great game! Those controls for shooting are smart. But the music is annoying as hell :D

This is a lot of fun! Took a minute to get the hang of the powerups, but the game makes a lot of sense after you do.

@schizoid2k I like the keyboard control scheme, but CTRL + D is a Chrome shortcut (add bookmark), and I seem to be hitting it more and more often when this game gets hard (when I'm dropping a power-up and moving). If you do anything else with this concept, maybe you'd consider giving a panicked klutz a break by making Shift or Space the power-up key?

I really like having to choose to let ants take food at times so you can build your powerup back!

Thanks to everyone for playing!

@corc0... good point! I think changing the power up key is a great idea.

I like the game! The graphics and the sounds are ok, i like the gameplay and the challenge that it offers to u

This ants are hangry, and angry! I don't understand how they can attack me (that's ants!) but the game was fun to play, even if I lose quickly. Good job anyways. :)

I had difficulty telling when and how I was being damaged, but still, good game. I liked the dual goals of protecting food and managing your own health.

Boy, you really follow the theme, don't you?? Those ants get really nasty after the 100 kills! But it's well made, solid, I liked it, good job!

Nice twin-stick shooter (I assume these games are called twin-stick shooters, right?)

Twin-stick shooter is correct!

Quite hard to play, but I like it! Well done!

Pretty hard! Good shooting. Not very clear when you get hurt and the hitboxes are pretty unforgiving. Overall good game!

Man, it's relentless! Really fun though!

Interesting take on the theme. One recommendation for playing with a controller is not to limit the player to only firing in 8 directions. Why can't I fire in any direction? Other than that, I thought it was pretty well done.

Nice work and a cool idea. My only complaint would be the limited firing directions, which makes the game artificially harder. I like how the sound effects build the tension, really well done.

I like the concept of rescuing your resources from waves of attackers. The game plays fluidly and the difficulty ramp up is well-balanced. The graphics are clean and convey the idea of the game well.

The best quality of the game is how smooth and fast everything moves. This allows for some nice fast-paced action.

There some problems with the gameplay though. I played with controller and the thumbsticks only allowed shooting in 8 directions, which made the game unnecessarily hard to control. This is a big problem for games that require skill and reflexes. Also it wasn't clear at all times how the pickup of the food works. It seemed that you couldn't pick up the food from a live ant (fair enough), but apparently also if ants were nearby. On two occasions I couldn't pick up the food at all, maybe because it was too close to the screen?

There are some tricks I would recommend to improve the game feel. For a game with low-key graphics these tricks can make the experience feel more robust:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Overall I would say it's a solid entry that could use a little polish.

Thanks again to everyone for your comments.

I do agree with the folks who stated that 8 directional firing should be improved to full 360 degree, and I plan on releasing an update once the voting has ended.

If you want, you can publish a post-compo version already along with your original entry, just make sure you mark it clearly as such so that people know what they're playing/rating.

Concerning the keyboard controls: Maybe have the mouse be the direction instead of a second set of keys? This would also allow you to port over the 360-degree approach over to keyboard/mouse.

Other than that: I like the inherent silliness of _shooting at ants at a picknick_. Which in reality --with its destructible plates-- would probably ruin the picknick about as much as the ants themselves :upside_down: